Imo APC To Buhari, Oyegun: Get Rid Of Okorocha
The All Progressives Congress (APC) in Imo State has urged the National Working Committee (NWC) and, particularly its Chairman, Chief John Odigie-Oyegun, to remain steadfast with the dictates of the constitution of the party in respect of the disputed ward and local government congresses held in the state.
The stakeholders in a strongly worded letter they copied President Muhammadu Buhari also stressed the urgent need for the party to get rid of the governor whom they described as a cankerworm.
They said removing the governor would safeguard its hard-won integrity and reputation with people of Imo and the entire South Eastern states.
The group said they rose against the governor to secure the trust and confidence of people of the state which, they claimed, had been dented by Governor Okorocha’s misrule.
According to the group, the governor had injured virtually all strata of the people of the state who were out to vent their anger on the party come 2019.
“He has injured the church, he has trampled market women, ‘okada’ riders, traditional institutions – there’s no person worth his name that can stand with the governor in the state.
“He cannot even get the support of his colleague governors even as chairman of governor’s forum,” they wrote.
Theo Ekeji, spokesman of the group, who gave several reasons why the party would not allow Okorocha to impose his son-in-law as governor, also maintained that the state congress of the party this weekend would go ahead as scheduled and warned the governor against inciting law-abiding citizens of the state to violence.
The party added: “His distaste for law and order and refusal to abide by any adjudicating process which is typified in the myriad of court orders scattered, yet ignored in Imo State over the past seven years, be they on the illegal dissolution of the council of traditional rulers or that of the illegal local government council, or the unconstitutional creation of 4th tier of government or the hate speeches fuelling the IPOB agitations and its secret funding to further his ‘Igbo Nation’ status for which he writes other country leaders.
“This attempt to drag the state into further violence in the face of a non-existent state assembly only points to the complete breakdown of an already non-existent governance for which the state of emergency envisaged in Section 305 of our constitution is to be declared.
“As our party chairman, kindly bring to the notice of our dear president that should the governor in his megalomania, fuelled by a debased mental state, procures further violence in his childlike tantrums, a state of emergency in Imo State would be a natural consequence.
“You have worked hard with our dear president to help keep this governor in his prodigal stupidity hoping that he will come to his senses. It appears the Emperor has indeed gone really mad, and now turns to threatening your good office and person.
“No other state did the president visit five times to appeal to its people and yet we wobbled. As APC, on account of this governor’s duplicity, wherein all the campaign funds sent to him were pilfered, this story was a repeat of his actions over Ngige’s election in Anambra, which he repeated in the lost funds in Ondo, and the paralysis of actions in Tony Nwoye experience.
“Our party must rid itself of this incorrigible worm, he is indeed a cankerworm.
“Your good office and the entire National Working Committee are invited to remain steadfast to the rules established for party governance and the defence of the constitution of our great country Nigeria.
“Do not yield to a man who has maimed all democratic norms, stolen his people blind and contravened all sections of the constitution of our party.”
Other signatories of the letter which was also copied to the leadership of the National Assembly, police, DSS, and other government agencies included Senators Ben Uwajumogu, Hope Uzodinma, Osita Izunaso, Ifeanyi Ararume, Hons. Emeka Nwajiuba, Mike Ohia and Austin Chukwukere.
On Wednesday, the crisis in Imo APC had escalated in Abuja with lawmakers loyal to Governor Okorocha urging the leadership of the party to fix a new date for congresses in the state.
The twenty-four lawmakers were led to the APC national secretariat by the speaker of the Imo State House of Assembly, Acho Ihim.
Acho claimed that, contrary to the position of the party’s leadership in the state and reports of the ward and local government congresses committee that no congress held.
“We are here to reconfirm the fact that there was no election held in all the wards in Imo state.
“There was no congress in Imo State and we are here to reaffirm, to say and demand that an announcement be made for a new date for the ward congresses, local congresses and we can now talk about the state congresses.”
Ihim told journalists that they were in Abuja to affirm the position of the governor, adding that the lawmakers were standing with Okorocha on the issues.
“We have affirmed our stand with our governor, we are still standing with our governor. He is the face of the APC in the South East.”
-Daily Independent-